Jpse: Journal of the Philosophical Study of Education, Volume 1 (2011)

J P S E

JOURNAL FOR THE PHILOSOPHICAL STUDY OF EDUCATION

VOL. I (2011)

Editors:

Allan Johnston, DePaul University and Columbia College Chicago

Guillemette Johnston, DePaul University

Outside Readers:

Charles V. Blatz, University of Toledo

Joseph Freedman, Alabama State University

Tom Friedrich, SUNY Plattsburgh

Jason Helfer, Knox College

Charles Howell, Northern Illinois University

Antonina Lukenchuk, National-Louis University

Linda O’Neill, Northern Illinois University

Sam Rocha, Wabash College

James Roper, Michigan State University

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© 2012 The Society for the Philosophical Study of Education. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 2/2/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4670-4116-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4670-6033-2 (e)

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Cover photo: School and Monument to World War One Dead, Boule D’Amont, France. Photograph by Allan and Guillemette Johnston

CONTENTS

Introduction

The Foundations of Moral Education:

The Problem of Tradition

Education as a Positional Good Reconsidered

Procreationalism and its Critics

A Mixed Approach to the Science Curriculum

Identity, Inclusion, Ethics, Values: Potentials of the Literacy Event

Gadamer in the Wings: Hermeneutics and Educational Policy

Rousseau and Yoga: Re-Evaluating the Development of Complex Faculties as Presented in Rousseau’s Emile

William James’s Position in the Freedom and Determinism Debate and its Implications for Education

Technocratic and Aesthetic-Democratic Being in UNESCO’s Lifelong Learning Policy Discourse: An Ideological Analysis

Authority and Leadership via a Multiple Frames Approach

About the Authors

The Society for the Philosophical Study of Education

Executive Board, 2011

Guillemette Johnston, DePaul University, President

Charlie Howell, Northern Illinois University, Vice-President

Sam Rocha, Wabash College, Treasurer

Marge Oliker, Chicago Public Library, Secretary

Alexander Makedon, Chicago State University, Webmaster

Board of Directors

Charles Blatz, University of Toledo

Jason Helfer, Knox College

Allan Johnston, Columbia College and DePaul University

Alexander Makedon, Chicago State University

Richard Pipan, Oakland University

Phil Smith, Ohio State University

Ronald Swartz, Oakland University

Introduction

Welcome to the first issue of the Journal for the Philosophical Study of Education (JPSE), a new peer-reviewed journal put out by the Society for the Philosophical Study of Education (SPSE). JSPE aims to publish papers that approach the field of education from a philosophical perspective, in the broadest sense of the term. Most often, the papers considered for publication will be selected from works presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Philosophical Study of Education by members of that organization, after they undergo peer review and revision. However, in the future JPSE may consider papers other than those presented at the annual meeting. Papers, book reviews, interviews, and other documents with emphases in history, psychology, religion, and other areas may be considered if they portend to the general ideal of philosophical speculation on the meaning, purpose, and/or nature of education.

To encourage diffusion, in the future the review may post abstracts of the contributions with references on how to order the review, should a reader be interested.

With regard to paper selection, JPSE has established the following guidelines for paper review, consideration, and publication: each paper is blind reviewed by two outside readers as well as by the chief editors. If deemed necessary by the editors, the paper may be sent to a third reader. Reviews are value free insofar as JPSE is not consciously pushing an educational agenda. If the argument makes logical sense, seems valid, and does not violate facts, it is treated with a certain amount of flexibility. Our desire is to ensure that all papers go through a screening process of blind review, whether or not the paper has undergone previous commentary during conference presentation.

A paper that receives two positive reviews from outside readers and the journal editors will be accepted, with suggested revisions if necessary. Where possible, readers and/or editors will suggest appropriate revisions, stylistic or otherwise, or raise questions regarding the content, context, and argument of the essay submitted. These should help the author make revisions, if any are requested.

As a general policy, to enable writers to articulate their projects more richly and cogently, when necessary we suggest one revision. That is, our goal is not to turn papers away, but rather to help authors develop their ideas. If the paper is returned and the suggested revisions have not been made to the satisfaction of the editors, the paper will not be accepted. The decision of the editors is final.

Currently in academia, peer editing is highly select and often follows strict ideological guidelines. The effect of this is to reduce the possibility of exploring ideas. For this reason a section of this journal will be dedicated to works in progress, including those that are not currently fashionable in critical circles. The journal thus will consider finished works, reviews, and other forms of inquiry when these enrich the content of the review. This approach will enable writers to receive constructive feedback, though without compromising the integrity of the writing as well as the contribution of accurate information and knowledge, which must remain the purpose of scholarship. Thus the journal will encourage original endeavors and perspectives in order to broaden fields of research and speculation, aiming at the eclectic and Socratic purposes of pursuing inquiry and increasing thought about education in the broad sense of the term. This format should allow for a safe exchange of feedback and foster the growth of scholarship, thus creating a supportive intellectual community.

In this first volume of JPSE, this screening process has led to the acceptance of about 40% of the papers submitted. However, this information should not lead readers or others to expect similar acceptance rates in future volumes.

Papers submitted for subsequent volumes should have footnotes rather than endnotes. We are currently in the process of establishing a house style based on one of the standard styles, but currently encourage authors to use a systematized style sheet, such as APA.

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The essays in this volume follow an unusual flow between the personal and social, touching on the experience of teaching and the perspectives of recognized philosophers of education, and leading to broader considerations of policy discourse in education and educational administration. Thus we go from personal explorations of value and meaning (Fontaine) to studies of the effects of social policy and sociopolitical concerns on education (Howell, Loftin) to explorations of teaching (A. Johnston, O’Neill) to the significance of the works of particular philosophers and/or thinkers (G. Johnston, Kim) to international educational discourse and administrative practice (Friedrich and Lee; Bradbury, Halbur, and Halbur).

Haroldo Fontaine’s The Foundations of Moral Education: The Problem of Tradition explores the concerns of the student (Miguel, in this essay) who confronts traditional values that no longer seem to have relevance, given the circumstances of life. Fontaine uses sources and models ranging from Heidegger to Ridley Scott’s film Blade Runner to explore alternative approaches to this confrontation with tradition, and suggests how the teacher can help the student confront traditions and values that no longer seem to hold the authenticity that the student’s social context gave to them. Two essays by Charlie Howell address social issues pertaining to education. The first one, Education as a Positional Good Reconsidered, questions whether education should be considered as a positional good, or in other words a good that is influenced by its social distribution. At stake is the effect of equal opportunities for education upon students of varied groups and classes, and the possibility that egalitarianism may cause more leveling down for the well-off and/or gifted, instead of more opportunity for the socially deprived. After examining the positions of Arneson and others, Howell concludes that the positional goods argument … does not provide a defense of strong versions of equal educational opportunity against the leveling-down objection.

Professor Howell’s other paper, Procreationalism and its Critics, examines objections to procreationalism, or the belief that parents have a moral obligation to look after their children, in recent philosophical literature, including Sidgwick’s argument that since parents bring the child into existence, they indirectly cause any suffering, injury, or death resulting from negligence. Howell considers how arguments about parental rights and moral obligations can be responded to in light of educational and political theory, and examines complications to these theories that arise from such factors as social plurality, technologies of surrogacy, and other influences. The idea of parental duties implies that parents have the right and even the obligation to look after their progeny, but the nature and extent of these duties vary in accordance with parental knowledge, experience, and moral commitment. Such differences help generate deep, persistent social inequalities that partly explain recent criticism of the family as the center of moral value, and also suggest why schools so often seem to fail in eradicating social inequality.

Todd P. Loftin’s argument for A Mixed Approach to the Science Curriculum considers the debate between evolutionary theory and Intelligent Design Theory (ITD), and how this debate should be approached in the classroom. He argues that the controversy is largely socioscientific and should not be viewed as scientific. Thus, ITD should not be taught in the science classroom. But because the motivation behind the inclusion of ITD pertains to the personal beliefs of its proponents, the theory should be addressed in some way. Loftin proposes a mixed approach, in which democratic dialogue is used to address questions of personal beliefs about the effects of science, and methodological naturalism is used to inform the science curriculum.

From social issues, we shift back to the more personal perspective of classroom activities. Allan Johnston, in Identity, Inclusion, Ethics, Values: Potentials of the ‘Literacy Event,’ discusses the larger significance of the Literacy Event assignment that is often given to students in first-year college writing courses. Johnston suggests that the literacy event can prompt students to reflect on the development of their identity in relation to language and literacy, and sometimes provides an opportunity for them to analyze the ethical implications of actions or of their sense of self-identity. Reports on classroom practice and analyses of student papers reveal that sometimes students who explore literacy events through writing gain insight into factors that have influenced their sense of identity and their ethical perspective.

Discussion of classroom practices continues in Linda O’Neill’s Gadamer in the Wings: Hermeneutics and Educational Policy. Professor O’Neill explores the role that Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutical analyses of mutability and prejudice can play in dialogic searches for truth, and summarizes a method she developed for policy discussions in graduate-level education classes. Her concern is to lessen the disparity between informed understandings of the traditions that underlie policies and the practical concerns that often drive policy decisions. By turning to Gadamer she hopes to justify and enhance a Socratic Seminar format for graduate classes on policy. However, she concludes that, at least in the context of a discussion involving controversy over the invitation of 1960s radical and educational theorist William Ayers to speak at a high school in Naperville, Illinois, "historical, legal, and philosophical perspectives remained largely disconnected from the case scenario discussion….

[T]hese seasoned teachers and administrators, who were initially intrigued by the Socratic excerpts and by Gadamer’s views, ignored them. She concludes that a Gadamerian hermeneutics might best work ‘behind the scenes,’ subtly enhancing professional educators’ approaches to the policy dilemmas they encounter."

Guillemette Johnston’s "Rousseau and Yoga: Re-Evaluating the Development of Complex Faculties as Presented in Rousseau’s Emile" is the third part of an ongoing, comprehensive comparative pedagogical analysis of the methods of education described by Rousseau in Emile and yogic pedagogical practices and beliefs. Based on the premise that Rousseau’s primary goal in describing Emile’s education is to suggest ways to control thought processes or at least to prevent their premature stimulation, Professor Johnston compares this goal with the basic premise of yoga, which the Yoga Sutra of Patañjali identifies as the stilling of the turnings of thought. In the current study Professor Johnston discusses the development of elaborate, active faculties such as memory, imagination, and reason. These faculties are studied in relation to stages of ego formation, and Rousseau’s effort to control their development are correlated with the inverted yogic approach of stilling the faculties through processes of self control, sense withdrawal, concentration, and meditation.

Sang Hyun Kim’s study William James’s Position in the Freedom and Determinism Debate and its Implications for Education traces the roots of James’s defense of free will against beliefs in scientific determinism. Dr. Kim argues that despite the dominant trend toward mechanical determinism in late 19th-century scientific thought, James continued to believe in the importance of free will to human behavior. Personal experiences, exposure to the philosophical writings of Charles Renouvier, and other factors convinced James that humans possess freedom of choice, and arguments supporting free will became central to his philosophical perspective. In relation to education, Kim points out that James’s beliefs do not entail a mere absence of external restraint or constraint, but rather a belief that freedom is possible within some kind of existing structure or order. James, that is, did not support an anything goes approach to human moral choice; freedom requires restraint. James further believed in pluralism, which Kim argues would have led him to support openness to diversity and … acceptance of individuality, especially in education. James’s meliorism meant that rather than swaying toward an optimistic or pessimistic perspective, James supported a neutral or mixed position in which choices remain critical and human action positively or negatively affects the world. This perspective, Kim argues, leads us to realize the importance of our free will and choice [and] encourages or even requires us to perform our part in the world for others as well as for our sake.

The last two papers return to questions of educational and administrative policy, linking to specific examples of ideological and economically-determined discourse and planning, and tracing the impact of these forces on the broader world of educational planning and administrative decision making. In Technocratic and Aesthetic-Democratic Being in UNESCO’s Lifelong Learning Policy Discourse: An Ideological Analysis, Tom Friedrich and Moosung Lee discuss how the lifelong learning policy discourse of the United Nations Educational. Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has been uniquely suspended between dominant technocratic and subordinate aesthetic-democratic modes of being over the last three decades. The lifelong learning discourses of its peer organizations, they argue, have been dominated by technocratic being in the form of neoliberal ideology. As a result, UNESCO’s lifelong learning policy discourse, initially designed to promote the pursuit of shared, expanding interests, has been forced to celebrate the pursuit of individuals’ own self-interest, but not to the exclusion of its aesthetic-democratic influences. To support this argument, Professors Friedrich and Lee use arguments from Heidegger and Dewey to provide a philosophical foundation for two ways of being-in-the-world today: dominant technocratic being, which promotes the freedom to pursue self-interest within a global capitalist order, and subordinate aesthetic-democratic being, which promotes the freedom to pursue shared interests within a context of popular rule. Professors Friedrich and Lee end their argument by demonstrating how technocratic ideological forces have become increasingly influential within UNESCO’s lifelong learning discourse, marginalizing aesthetic-democratic discourses, though not to their complete exclusion.

If Friedrich and Lee examine how UNESCO’s Lifelong Learning discourse has changed through the years, Boyd L. Bradbury, Kimberly Vess Halbur, and Duane Halbur, in Authority and Leadership via a Multiple Frames Approach, examine ways that academic administrators can address changes in educational institutions and practices that result from economic, political, and ideological factors, among other influences. As they argue, the only aspect of education that is truly static is its propensity to change. In addressing how best to approach change with an eye to equity, economic soundness, and ethical consideration, Professors Bradbury and D. Halbur and Associate Dean K. V. Halbur analyze the four frames approach described by Bolman and Deal, in which structural, human resource, political, and symbolic frames are used to evaluate potential effects of institution-changing decisions. The structural frame focuses on organizational goals, role clarification, and information management; the human resource frame targets the needs of people; the political frame addresses dealings with internal and external constituencies; and the symbolic frame concentrates on the meaning, traditions and culture of institutions. When balanced against institutional priorities, these approaches give leaders ways to understand and predict the consequences of interventions with organizational structures. They provide leaders with a means of considering potential outcomes of complex decisions, including their ethical implications. Case studies from P-12 and higher educational institutions illustrate actual applications of Bowman and Deal’s four frames approach.

The variety of topics addressed in the essays included in this first issue of JPSE reflects, we hope, the quality and diversity of the approaches we would like to consider in future essays. Our next issue may include essays from the 2010, 2011, and 2012 annual meetings of the Society for the Philosophical Study of Education, as well (potentially) as other offerings, such as interviews, reviews, works in progress, and other material. Should you have any questions or be interested in submitting material, please do not hesitate to contact the editors via email at ajohnst2@depaul.edu or gjohnsto@depaul.edu.

Allan Johnston and Guillemette Johnston

Call for Papers

JPSE is now actively seeking submissions of papers by members of SPSE and others. Priority will be given to papers delivered at the annual November 2010, 2011, and 2012 meetings of SPSE in Chicago. However, other works, such as interviews, reviews, works in progress, and articles, will also be considered. See the introduction for an idea of the editorial strategy and scope of JPSE. Please submit materials as attachments to the editors, Allan Johnston and Guillemette Johnston, at the following email addresses:

ajohnst2@depaul.edu

ajohnston@colum.edu

gjohnsto@depaul.edu

Please indicate "JPSE submission" in the subject line of the email. Documents should be submitted in Microsoft Word doc or docx formats. In formatting, please follow APA guidelines. Please also include an abstract of about 100 words with your submission.

If you are interested in submitting a work to SPSE Roundtable, the online journal of SPSE, please send your paper (subject line Roundtable submission) to the email addresses listed above, and also to the SPSE webmaster, Alexander Makedon, at the following email address:

makedonalex@yahoo.com

SPSE Roundtable exclusively publishes papers read by SPSE members during the SPSE sessions of the American Philosophical Association, Central Division (APA), held every February or March in various locations. Formatting and style are at the author’s discretion, but should conform to APA, MLA, or CMS.

A Note for Readers

If you are interested in reviewing papers submitted to JPSE, please let us know. Interested parties should submit a CV and a writing sample for consideration.

When reviewing a paper, readers are expected to exercise academic tolerance and provide constructive support with helpful suggestions, questions, and comments. Disparaging, egoistic, and dismissive feedback on behalf of the reader will not be